Husker Du’s Early Recordings Collected for New ‘Savage Young Du’ Box

Some of Hüsker Dü's earliest recordings are being compiled for a new triple-disc box sporting freshly remastered sound — and a hefty helping of previously unreleased material.

Due out Nov. 10 via the Numero Group and available to pre-order now, Savage Young Dü surveys the pioneering punk band's formative years, collecting 69 tracks originally recorded between 1979 and 1982 — the year before the group signed with SST and released the first in a series of now-classic LPs. According to the label's press release, 47 of the cuts compiled on Savage Young Dü are previously unreleased; among the wealth of rare and remastered material, the set sports a completely alternate version of their Land Speed Record live album and a hardbound book that includes a lengthy retrospective essay as well as an array of photos and other assorted memorabilia.

Fans can catch their first glimpse of Savage Young Dü courtesy of NPR, where the box is being exclusively streamed via the organization's First Listen series. The former members of Hüsker Dü have also weighed in on the release, which Numero admits only came together after years of often delicate negotiations.

"We approached Grant Hart with a crude mock-up and a lot of moxie. He rewarded us with a swim in Cedar Lake and several years of cryptic emails and late night phone calls. Greg Norton threw up his hands at the onset and told us to let him know when something real was happening. And for the first five years we barely registered on Bob Mould’s radar, sending packages and messages into the void on the hopes that something, anything might just stick," reads the press release announcing Savage Young Dü's impending arrival. "Persistence pays. Don’t let anyone tell you different."

As previously reported, this isn't the first time Numero's shepherded the release of material from Hüsker Dü's vaults — and as Hart told NPR, it may not be the last. "It's too early to say," he admitted. "But never say never."

"We could do a live version of every single record, if we wanted to," Numero co-founder Ken Shipley told Rolling Stone. "And this is a band that wrote three albums in a year, so there's plenty of stuff that didn't make the cut that we're sifting through. We just want to find the best way to get it out. The hope is that we, once a year, will revisit Hüsker Dü and find a new way to tell their story."